With this Buondelmonte the dissensions in Florence were supposed to have first begun.  Macchiavelli’s account of him is, that he was about to marry a young lady of the Amidei family, when a widow of one of the Donati, who had designed her own daughter for him, contrived that he should see her; the consequence of which was, that he broke his engagement, and was assassinated. Historie Fiorentine, lib. ii.]

[Footnote 20: 

  “Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta
  Piu caramente; e questo e quello strale
  Che l’arco de l’esilio pria saetta.

  Tu proverai si come sa di sale
  Lo pane altrui, e com’e duro calle
  Lo scendere e ’l salir per l’altrui scale.

  E quel che piu ti gravera le spalle,
  Sara la compagnia malvagia e scempia
  Con la qual tu cadrai in questa valle: 

  Che tutta ingrata, tutta matta ed empia
  Si fara contra te:  ma poco appresso
  Ella, non tu, n’avra rossa la tempia.

  Di sua bestialitate il suo processo
  Fara la pruova, si ch’ a te fia bello
  Averti fatta parte per te stesso.”

[Footnote 21:  The Roman eagle.  These are the arms of the Scaligers of Verona.]

[Footnote 22:  A prophecy of the renown of Can Grande della Scala, who had received Dante at his court.]

[Footnote 23:  “Letizia era ferza del paleo”]

[Footnote 24:  Supposed to be one of the early Williams, Princes of Orange; but it is doubted whether the First, in the time of Charlemagne, or the Second, who followed Godfrey of Bouillon.  Mr. Cary thinks the former; and the mention of his kinsman Rinaldo (Ariosto’s Paladin?) seems to confirm his opinion; yet the situation of the name in the text brings it nearer to Godfrey; and Rinoardo (the name of Rinaldo in Dante) might possibly mean “Raimbaud,” the kinsman and associate of the second William.  Robert Guiscard is the Norman who conquered Naples.]

[Footnote 25:  Exquisitely beautiful feeling!

[Footnote 29:  Most beautiful is this simile of the lark: 

  “Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta
  De l’ultima dolcezza che la sazia.”

In the Pentameron and Pentalogia, Petrarch is made to say, “All the verses that ever were written on the nightingale are scarcely worth the beautiful triad of this divine poet on the lark [and then he repeats them].  In the first of them, do you not see the trembling of her wings against the sky?  As often as I repeat them, my ear is satisfied, my heart (like hers) contented.

“Boccaccio.—­I agree with you in the perfect and unrivalled beauty of the first; but in the third there is a redundance.  Is not contenta quite enough without che la sazia?The picture is before us, the sentiment within us; and, behold, we kick when we are full of manna.

“Petrarch.—­I acknowledge the correctness and propriety of your remark; and yet beauties in poetry must be examined as carefully as blemishes, and even more.”—­p. 92.